Animosity Read online

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Started gnawing at my fingernails. I nodded.

  All told, he remained on my property for a total of about twenty minutes. And the verdict proved no different than thirty-six hours before, when I informed Detective Erik Norton that someone had been digging through my garbage.

  Young Officer Sanchez put his notepad away, and said, “We’ll be in touch.”

  Broken glass crunched beneath his boots as he returned to his patrol car.

  “So… that’s it?” I said.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied. “For now. Of course, we will be speaking with your neighbors over the next few days. We’ll ask around, find out if anyone saw anything.”

  My neighbors, I thought. Now there’s a novel idea, Officer Sanchez. Because they can sure as hell answer any questions you might have about what happened here…

  He paused as he climbed back into his vehicle, and he turned to look at me with an expression that seemed to indicate he felt sorry for me. I wondered if he knew the details of my predicament, if perhaps after my last call to the boys in blue I had become the laughing stock of the entire police department. For that matter, I wondered if he was buddies with Keith Whitmire. If they went out drinking together after work several nights a week…

  No. I doubted Officer Sanchez was old enough to imbibe.

  “Can I make a suggestion, Mr. Holland?” he said. “Just between you and me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cases like this, ya gotta understand… if you didn’t catch the perp in the act, it’s rare that anything ever comes of it.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “And even then, it’s your word against theirs.”

  I shook my head, stared at my shoes. Bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood.

  “Just so you know, sir. It is a long shot. Without any physical evidence—fingerprints, et cetera—there’s not a whole lot we can do. I’m just sayin’… you shouldn’t sit around expecting something that—to be perfectly honest with you—is probably not gonna happen.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I’d never do that.”

  I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I knew he meant well. But my efforts were futile.

  “Have a nice day, Mr. Holland,” said Officer Sanchez. “Hang in there.”

  The radio on his dashboard squawked and trilled like a dying bird as he slammed his car door. He gave me a little salute through the window before starting the engine. I watched him back out of my driveway, then cruise slowly down Poinsettia Lane.

  I sighed, just kept shaking my head. Wondered when, exactly, he planned on speaking to my neighbors. Certainly not today, judging from the direction he was headed. His patrol car did not stop until it reached the end of my street, its brake lights flashing briefly in the pinkish half-light of dawn before the car turned right onto Brookshire Boulevard.

  Feeling more hopeless than I had ever felt in my life, I headed back inside.

  I crawled into bed, curled up in a fetal position beneath the covers.

  I did not sleep, however. No way could I go back to sleep even if I had wanted to.

  I just lay there for several long hours, staring at the wall. Through the wall…

  Wishing I could be far, far away.

  ***

  When I finally dragged my ass out of bed that morning around eleven o’clock, I called Rick’s Flatbed Service to come haul away the Explorer. Subsequent conversations with Bill’s Body Shop and 12th Avenue Tire across town proved frustrating at best. Both informed me—with a snide sort of delight, I thought, but surely I imagined as much due to my own wretched mood—that they were extremely backlogged and the earliest they could start repair on my SUV would be a week from the following Monday.

  “Whatever,” I said as I hung up.

  I felt numbed by it all, not the least bit surprised.

  And in some strange, detached way, I wondered if I even really cared.

  PART TWO

  August 1 - August 8

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A few days later, I found another message from my neighbors.

  This one had been snipped from the Harris Weekly Independent (“The Heart o’ the Matter” Op-Ed feature on Page 2), and was stapled to my front door:

  WHO IS ANDREW HOLLAND?

  (Portrait of a Scaremonger)

  By Jeremy Webster, Editor-In-Chief

  According to police reports, successful local author Andrew Holland claims he was merely walking his Golden Retriever “Norman”—a name that, according to friends and neighbors, was inspired by cross-dressing serial killer Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Psycho—along Poinsettia Lane on July 17th. Holland claims that he simply “happened to find” the body of nine-year-old Rebecca Lanning on a construction site located at 229 Poinsettia Lane (the writer lives at 217 Poinsettia Lane). According to the coroner’s report filed on July 21st, this poor, innocent child had been savagely raped before she was murdered.

  What am I getting at, you ask?

  Leave it to me, faithful readers, to ask the uncomfortable questions. After all, it’s my job.

  Frankly, friends… I am beginning to wonder if the monster in Harrison County’s midst isn’t closer than we all think.

  To date, no charges have been filed in the investigation of Rebecca Lanning’s murder, and the Harris City Police Department has yet to name any suspects. Meanwhile, Detective Paul Hembry, who co-heads the investigation with Lieutenant Detective Erik Norton, has stated several times now that Andrew Holland is not under consideration as a suspect. And yet, one must wonder if discounting Holland as a suspect is a wise decision. It is worth noting that the novelist was the first person to discover Rebecca Lanning’s body—a body that had been a living, breathing little girl with hopes and dreams and aspirations of one day becoming a veterinarian, according to her grieving mother—minutes before Andrew Holland happened across the scene. One has to wonder exactly how many minutes separated the child’s death and the “discovery” of her corpse? What margin of error might there be? Could law enforcement officials be ignoring a simple yet horrific possibility? A plausible deduction that, for reasons unknown, they don’t seem to be considering or, when confronted with it, aren’t taking as seriously as they should be?

  Far be it from me to make accusations that have not yet been made by the very professionals who have sworn to protect and serve our county.

  Still, it is something to think about.

  As a journalist (going on thirty years now) who attempts to always look beyond what lies directly in front of my face, I have found myself pondering these burning questions on more than one occasion during the last few tumultuous weeks. Judging from the numerous phone calls, letters, and e-mails I have received from this community, I am far from alone in my speculation. Recently, certain dark truths about Andrew Holland have bubbled to the surface—truths that, upon consideration, this journalist feels should be taken into account posthaste. As my suspicions and curiosities are shared by many concerned residents of Harrison County, I feel that it is my duty to provide the public with clear, accurate information about the man named Andrew Holland…

  Andrew Kenneth Holland was born on December 27th, —— in Jackson, Tennessee to hardworking middle-class parents. His father, Randall James Holland, worked in hazardous materials; he died from a heart attack six years ago. His mother, Amanda Rene Holland, currently resides in Newark, New Jersey, where she recently retired after serving as an English teacher for forty-plus years. After graduating from North Jackson High School in Jacksonville, Tennessee, Andrew Holland went on to enroll at Jackson County Community College, but eventually dropped out to pursue a full-time career as a novelist. When he was twenty-one years old, Glenn DeCarlo Press contracted his first novel Wolf Moon—a story about a pack of werewolves living in the subways of New York City—and not long after his debut was publis
hed the movie adaptation of Wolf Moon titillated theatergoers the world over with its unflinching depictions of murder and bestiality.

  The rest, as they say, is history. Andrew Holland was soon laughing all the way to the bank.

  On May 3rd, ——, Andrew married Karen Kimberly Cook of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The couple eschewed traditional Protestant vows in favor of a wedding ceremony with more Celtic-Pagan themes. Their only child, Samantha Rene Holland, was born on September 5, ——. The couple divorced less than amicably this past April (as a result of infidelity, according to one source close to the Hollands, who asked to remain anonymous). Although Andrew and Karen share joint custody of 11-year-old Samantha, she lives with her mother and only sees her father on Wednesdays and every other weekend.

  At first glance, the only thing that seems to differentiate Andrew Holland from his neighborhood peers is his unusual career. He is the author of thirteen novels, most of which have been translated into multiple languages for international markets, and he doesn’t appear ready to slow down any time soon. As someone who works in print myself, my first inclination is to applaud Holland on his success. Yet it hardly takes more than a cursory glance at this horror writer’s career to see that his work is of a very unsettling nature on the whole. Holland’s stories more often than not contain disturbing passages of meticulously detailed sex, violence, and gore. His books are well written, arguably, but their subject matter forces one to wonder how deep runs the dark crevasse in Andrew Holland’s psyche. Even Stephen King and Clive Barker, two of the most notable and best-selling “terror scribes” of all time, have taken extended breaks from the morbid and macabre to craft tales with a less sinister bent. Adolescents the world over have found King’s The Eyes of the Dragon and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon to be delightful reads free of the grue that pervades his better-known horror bestsellers, and Barker (creator of Hellraiser) has written The Thief of Always and Abarat, which are aimed squarely at young readers.

  What does Holland have on the market other than his popular adult horror novels? Nothing under his own name, to be sure. Using the too-clever-for-its-own-good pseudonym of “Anthony Dutch”, he has published the popular “Frightsville, U.S.A.” series for Young Adults. There are currently four books in this series, but their depth and content are easily recognized thanks to grotesque titles such as Cannibal High and Devil’s Detention. To date, Holland has shown no interest whatsoever in penning anything that isn’t of the macabre variety, even when given a chance to write for a more impressionable audience.

  For residents of Harrison County, Holland’s work can point out some very chilling parallels with real life if we are willing to look deep enough. As previously stated, his books often contain extremely violent content, as well as bizarre sexual situations that quite often extend well beyond the line of perversion. Worse yet is the fact that, in his written works at least, Holland shows no hesitation at putting child characters in grim situations. His latest novel, Slow Burn, is a perfect example of such a shameless “talent.” This novel—which earlier this year debuted at #7 on the New York Times bestseller list—is about a serial killing man-of-the-cloth who douses pregnant women with gasoline then sets them on fire because he believes they are possessed by demons. As if that thought wasn’t repellent in itself, Holland describes in great detail the grotesque acts performed by the novel’s antagonist as he burns his victims alive. One scene involving the charred corpse of an unborn child is simply too horrendous to describe within the pages of this periodical; in fact, I would call most of the narrative downright offensive. How anyone could in good conscience make up such repugnant scenarios in the name of “entertainment” is beyond my comprehension.

  Perhaps the novel that deserves a deeper amount of scrutiny, though, is A Cold Dark Place. If ever a more sadistic and depraved novel exists, I am not familiar with it. The novel in question—Holland’s fifth—focuses on a vile serial killer who preys upon young children. Their murders are graphic and explicit, even if they are described in forensic flashbacks. From beginning to end, A Cold Dark Place is a painful read for the sensitive reader, and one has to wonder how such ideas could occur to any healthy human psyche.

  It has often been stated by writers and artists alike that a great deal of their own beliefs, experiences, and personality are infused within their work. Often, novels are thinly-veiled explorations of concepts and preoccupations harbored by the authors themselves. Literary great Ernest Hemingway experienced a great deal of tragedy in his romantic life. His writing reflects this, as nearly every major female character in his work eventually abandons or betrays the central male character. If such things are true for all writers, what are we to believe when we read the works of Andrew Holland?

  You don’t have to take my word for it, faithful reader. Perhaps we should go straight to the source…

  In an interview with Parade magazine eleven years ago, Holland boasted, “I think I’m a little bit different from most folks, sure. People don’t like to talk about the dark side of life, the things that lurk in the shadows… (but) horror writers, we like stepping into the darkness. We live there. And we enjoy every minute of it. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, you know? Our fans enjoy being scared. I know I do. But now I get to build the roller-coaster. And there ain’t a better job in this world.”

  In an interview with People magazine six years ago, Holland gleefully admitted, “Yeah, I’m twisted. Some might even say I’m a sick son of a b***h.”

  Statements like these certainly serve to punctuate his obsession with murder and depravity, and his enjoyment in creating the disturbing stories that find their way into our local bookshops as best-selling novels (personally, the fact that such works are so immensely popular brings to mind the old saying “a fool and his money are soon parted,” but maybe that’s just me—there is no accounting for taste, after all). But analysis of this man’s career and his own views on his writing are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There is other evidence of Holland’s potentially disturbing mindset that has recently come to light, and anyone willing to examine the writer’s life in detail would be shocked at what he or she finds.

  On February 18, —, at the age of twenty, Andrew Holland was arrested on statutory rape charges after he was caught having sex with a sixteen-year-old girl. Found by the victim’s undoubtedly mortified father, Holland would eventually plead guilty to the charges against him. He was fined one thousand dollars and sentenced to a year of supervised probation.

  This information, combined with the content of some of Holland’s more extreme novels like A Cold Dark Place, can easily be viewed as pieces of a very dark, disturbing jigsaw puzzle. Surely investigating Detectives Hembry and Norton have noticed this? Surely Holland himself has noticed this? He seems like a smart man, after all. But the horror writer has thus far neglected to put forth any effort to be open with a community that is already fearfully on edge. He has ventured in quite the opposite direction, in fact. According to those who know him best—his fellow residents of Poinsettia Lane—Holland has continually refused to comment on the case in question, and he appears to have become increasingly solitary, rarely leaving his home or interacting with others unless it is absolutely necessary. Attempts to contact Holland via his agent—Theresa Gregory of Suttles, Gregory, & Hare in New York City—have gone unanswered. Holland’s sudden estrangement from any kind of social interaction has understandably raised more than a few eyebrows throughout this frightened community.

  Floyd Beecham, a neighbor of Andrew Holland’s, had the following to say recently about the novelist: “He stays cooped up inside (his house) all the time… what are the rest of us supposed to think?”

  Another neighbor, Eileen Tuttle, said: “Andy always kept to himself. He was a friendly enough fellow if you initiated the conversation, I guess, but he never let anyone get too close.”

  One Poinsettia Lane resident who asked to remain anonymous said: “You pass someone on the street every day, you wave hello. But yo
u never really know what’s inside a person. And (I think) that’s the scariest thing of all.”

  Yet another anonymous neighbor stated: “I drank a beer with Andy now and then, we chatted about baseball, but I wouldn’t exactly call us ‘friends.’ I never knew him well at all, to be honest. I just hope and pray he didn’t have anything to do with (Rebecca Lanning’s murder).”

  Holland has not only cut himself off from his friends and neighbors. It would seem he is attempting to distance himself from the rest of the world as well, including his own devoted fan base. The writer has an official website—sponsored by his publisher—where he used to correspond regularly with his readers. At press time, however, Holland had neither posted on that forum nor updated his popular Facebook page for several weeks.

  At a time when citizens are horrified by an act that defies all sense of decency, the first person to have “discovered” that it happened has suddenly (some might say suspiciously) drawn away from the people who need to communicate with him the most.

  Take Ronnie “Round Man” Miller, for example. Miller was once a strong supporter of Holland. It wasn’t so long ago that, when customers walked through the doors of the 7th Avenue Stop-N-Shop which Miller owns and operates, they would find a rack next to his cash register filled with signed copies of Andrew Holland’s books. A lot has changed in the last few weeks, however. The rack by Round Man’s register is now empty, and Holland’s works have vanished from the store altogether. Their absence—like Holland’s own, of late—is conspicuous, to say the least. Miller declined to comment on why Holland’s books are no longer present in his store, but there are times when what’s missing is the most important evidence to be considered. And what isn’t said is often more revealing than what is.